Gone
by Cainchan
Summary: It started with a headache but somehow you instantly knew something was incredibly wrong. (Star Trek reboot fic. Kind of AU but not really. Timeline: 3 years into the 5 year mission.)


**Many thanks to my beta the-violet-raven. Thank you so much. You helped me a lot.**

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It started with a headache but somehow you instantly knew something was incredibly wrong.

You knew – even if you weren't a specialist in Vulcan biology - that Vulcans rarely suffer from something 'mundane', but he did and you made it your goal to help him. Even if he didn't show his discomfort, you could see through the facade to the incredible pain he was in. You could see the way he would stiffen during his work on the bridge. How he would fight the urge to utter a painful moan or rub at his hurting temples. Besides, you were a doctor for god's sake and he – he was your patient and even if you never would admit it out loud, he, after all, was and always would be your friend.

You would help him.

During the next few weeks you began to watch him more closely and he seemed constantly in pain. In addition to the head pain, his whole body seemed to hurt him and his once graceful movements were now awkward and stiff. His whole posture was rigid. He constantly seemed to fight hard not to give in the urge to curl up on the floor and scream. You gave him far too many hypos against the pain. They didn't help at all. Made him sicker instead - stupid Vulcan and his stupid biology. Your worries increased. However, you were a stubborn son of a bitch and you wouldn't give up.

If the headaches and pain weren't enough – the dizzy spells were. They came out of nowhere; but like the pain, they didn't vanish. There were few at first, but they increased rapidly over the next few months - leaving him disorientated and weak, struggling to fulfil his tasks as a scientist officer and Jim's right hand. You had to escort him more than once to his quarters and force him to lie down. You would rather have him in your sickbay but he simply refused and you wanted him in comfortable and familiar surroundings. His quarters were the best option – even if it meant you had to stay in his rooms with him to make sure he got no worse. Stupid green-blooded Vulcans who are worse than certain captains when it came to taking care of themselves.

You increased your research on Vulcan illnesses and tried different medications. However everything you tried to cure his strange sickness, didn't help him at all. They made everything worse. Human medication didn't help a Vulcan and some even had the opposite effect. You were at a loss. But you swore you wouldn't give up. Not yet. Not ever. You were a doctor, you swore an oath to help people and you would help him.

Then there was the nausea. The Vulcan never seemed to enjoy eating that much. He more than once skipped his meal in favour of doing some task for the captain, but now he seemed to be nearly disgusted by any form of food. In addition, he was unable to keep something down. If you forced him to eat he brought it up instantly and god, with his reduced gag reflex, being sick in that manner was painful for him. It was also painful for you because watching over him when he was so violently ill was not anything you enjoyed. Nevertheless, after every meal you held him as he was sick in the bathroom, shaking, and unable to suppress his moans and unwillingly starting to cry because of the pain and being sick for it seems like hours. You always were curious if Vulcans could indeed cry. Now that you knew, you hated yourself for the knowledge.

After the headache, the pain, the dizzy spells and the nausea, there was the coughing. Then there was blood. Months after intensive research, trying to find a cure and failing horribly, he started to cough up blood. Jesus the emerald liquid looked strange running down his pale lips and white, ivory skin. When it first happened you were terrified and he remained aloof and detached. One look into his wide, dark – and far too human - eyes and you knew he was scared. Behind his logic, stoic demeanour of his – he was scared shitless. Yet there was still nothing you could do – you still didn't know the cause of the illness. So you doubled your research time to find out what tortured your colleague. What tortured your friend. What tortured the person who had become the most important person in your life, besides your daughter and Jim.

After getting too weak to stand up for more than a few minutes, he had to stop working. Not that he stopped willingly. You had to order him to stop. He hated you for it, but you didn't care. His health was more important, and if you had to strap him to his bed, you would do it. Being too weak to stand up had one advantage though - at least now he could rest without interruption. His defeated look broke your heart. You again spend your nights with research and find nothing.

Jim was incredible worried. He asked you frequently what was wrong with his first officer. You cursed yourself that you still had no answer to that question. You only knew he was dying and that nothing eased his suffering.

Besides the strange symptoms which tormented him, he also became very skittish. He flinched when you tried to touch him skin to skin – not that he was fond of touching before – being a touch telepath and all that – but now he seemed utterly scared. Especially when you came near his spy points, he retreated almost violently with a pained expression and far too much fear in his eyes. Another warning sign that something was so wrong with him. Another warning sign which made you sick to the stomach. You tried a few times to bring him to meld with you – maybe you could find out was wrong with him when he would let you in his head – but these encounters always ended in screaming and pain for the Vulcan. You never wanted to hear another living being scream that way ever again. It took hours to calm him after such a melding incident, and even if after some time the screaming stopped, you weren't sure if it was because he experienced no discomfort anymore or because his voice gave out.

You became his only caretaker over the months. Jim and Uhura seemed unable to witness their friend suffering. You could understand them; however, you didn't approve of it. He was their friend too after all and he needed them. You needed them. You couldn't do this alone but it seemed you had to.

He was constantly cold. This didn't surprise you because Vulcans were used to a much hotter climate. Additionally having a much lower body temperature than human beings made his stay on the Enterprise (where temperature was set to be comfortable for human beings) not pleasurable. However now he couldn't stop trembling like a leaf. No matter how many degrees you increased the temperature in his quarters or wrapped him in thousands of blankets, he never stopped shaking.

Leaving him alone became almost unbearable as he got worse. So you spent hours in his quarters, keeping watch over him, and neglecting your duties as a CMO. Hoping that the familiar surroundings and a gentle voice brought him any comfort, any relief. He didn't speak much anymore – you didn't expect him to. He seemed to be in too much pain to form anything beyond a moan. You rather preferred the silence instead of painful gasps.

You still refused to give up. You refused to give him the relief of death. You made that mistake once, but you wouldn't do that again. You wouldn't play God again. Constantly you had to remind yourself that he wasn't your father. Even if he nearly begged you to end his suffering you wouldn't give in. Not this time. You wouldn't give in, in his request when there was still hope. You would find a cure. You wouldn't fuck up a second time. You couldn't fuck up a second time.

Sometimes you hold him close – his too thin body in your arms, wrapped in far too many layers of clothes and blankets, so you wouldn't touch his skin directly. You really didn't want to cause him any more distress. His shaking almost vanished in these moments and he looked rather peaceful. The calm and peace was deceitful though. You knew it wasn't true. You knew he was still hurting badly. You knew that there still wasn't anything you could do to end his anguish. You hated yourself for that. Maybe he hated you too. Still you could bear his hate because you would always prefer him being alive and hating you, over him being dead and gone.

There were times when you missed your fighting, your arguments, your bickering. You missed his fucking attitude and his "oh so logical" remarks. Now instead of heated discussions there was only silence and pain. God, how much you loathed it.

He got thinner and thinner. His already slim frame nearly shrinking until there was nothing left besides skin and bones. You could barely stand to look at his body, although you couldn't avoid it because he was unable to wash and dress himself. Now, every day, you had to help him with that. It wasn't a task you looked forward to because first, it was painful for him to move and secondly it was another reminder of how weak he had gotten. You tried to be as gentle as possible with cleaning and showering him. Tried to calm him with soft words. You even wore gloves to spare him the skin-to-skin contact. That didn't change the fact that the Vulcan looked almost lost and incredibly humiliated and defeated every time he sat under the spray in the shower stall and you bathed him with efficient moves and gentle hands.

You started to sleep in his quarters. It lessened your worries that he might die in your absence. The first time you held him close at night, he didn't say anything only buried his head weakly in the material of your sleep shirt. You drew him closer and held him tightly against your much stronger, more solid body, not trying to flinch when his bones dug into your side through layers of clothing.

Most nights there were nightmares. You didn't know that Vulcans could dream – but this one did and the dreams were not pleasant. You had to wake him up more than once during the night and even if big, brown eyes looked back at you – you didn't know if he really saw you or if he was still captured in another nightmare which seemed to haunt him so viciously. You soothed him and called him endearments as you would have done with your daughter. It didn't help at all. You didn't expect it to. That didn't stop you from trying. You never gave up easily, you wouldn't start now.

Jim and you fought. Over what was right or not right for your Vulcan. You demanded, he should visit Spock in his quarters that it would help him. Jim was his best friend and so he should fucking do what a friend does when his best friend was ill. Jim refused. He was scared. Scared to see the Vulcan fading away. Scared of the fact that he could lose his best friend to something he couldn't protect him from. The illness was no villain, no Klingon, no Nero or John Harrison, Jim couldn't shoot the illness like some bad guy to save his first officer's life and that frightened him. It frightened him deeply that he could do nothing against the sickness. It frightened him that the only thing he could do now was to stand by and watch how his best friend get weaker and weaker. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios and so the prospect that this time everything could end, scared him shitless. You knew that, but that didn't excuse his behaviour. You still wouldn't give up though. You continued to argue with the captain. You continued to convince him to spend time with the sick Vulcan and like the stubborn-son-of-a-bitch you were you never stopped trying to persuade him to visit his best friend. Stupid kid, for thinking he could stand a chance against you. Stupid illness who thought he could take the Vulcan away.

Sometimes the Vulcan would start to cry without reason and without realizing he did so. He was out of his mind. Stripped of all logic, what was left was a scared child, who was in pain and didn't understand why the anguish didn't stop. Sometimes you would cry too because even if you were a doctor there was nothing you could do beyond holding him, comforting him and lying to him that everything would get better soon. You felt so useless and the guilt lay like a noose around your neck. A noose that grew tighter with every passing day.

You couldn't stand to lose him. Not him. Not now.

Like Jim, he was family. Had become family after serving together for so many years, after being together on this ship, nearly dying for each other on missions and after saving each other countless times. Like Jim, you loved him and would do anything for him. Maybe you loved him even more or, maybe, differently, but you would never tell him that. Not yet anyway. Not until the Vulcan got better. Another reason he had to get better. Another reason to fight.

You realized you became quite possessive over the Vulcan. You did not tolerate when other doctors, or nurses or even people touched him. You were a dominant possessive human being after all, something which your ex-wife never liked or tolerated. You started to think of the Vulcan as yours. This feeling surprised you, the feeling that you wanted him to be yours. Yours to protect. Yours to love. Yours to keep safe. You wanted to be, what he needed the most. The desire to keep him was nearly overwhelming. You would be his knight in shining armour rescuing him from a villain who was worse than anyone you've ever encountered, rescuing him from this illness which had him in its deathly grasp.

At the end, you couldn't help him. You realized early in your life that not every story had a happy ending, no matter what these stupid fairy tale books said. So one day his breathing got slower, and his pulse was fluttering weakly, and slowly under your grasp. He grips your arm with pale, delicate and too thin fingers - you knew that this was his way of saying goodbye. You felt numb as you kissed his forehead. Then you gently kissed his lips for the first and last time. His skin was cold and clammy when you touched him. His lips were dry and salty under yours. There was no heat or passion in the kiss – it was small, quick, and chaste. It was perfect. You came to realize that you were crying. Tears were running down your scruffy cheeks. You didn't bother with shaving these last few days. Every minute with him was more important than something so mundane like shaving. You loathed to leave his side, because of the fear he could slip away.

People say dying is peaceful but it isn't. Not always anyway. Not in this case. His last minutes were full with painful gasps and hoarse screams and you held him until his body became still and the light left his dark, huge, bruised eyes. His white face was still contorted with pain as you gently closed his eyes. You repressed a sob and failed.

You were angry with your reactions. How pathetic. You should be more professional. You were a doctor after all. He was your patient. You encountered death on a daily basis – you should be able to deal with it. You knew that not every story had a happy ending. You knew that life was not fair, that life was not a fairy tale, where good people live a long and good life. Still, this time you hoped it would be different. You prayed it would be different. This time you hoped you could save your patient, your friend, your love. Your hope was in vain and you failed again.

When Jim found you hours later your cheeks were dry and the body in your arms was cold.

He was gone.

**The End**

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Die du den Lebensherbst

Zum Frühling mir gemacht,

Zum Herbste nun entfärbst

Du mir die Frühlingspracht.

Sonst hab' ich nur im Herbst

An Tod und Grab gedacht;

Nun ist's, als ob du sterbst

In jeder Frühlingsnacht.

**- Friedrich Rückert**


End file.
